I have no issue with carnivores and I am a struggling vegetarian “wanna-be” myself. I think where I take issue is with the massive widespread abuse of animals. Even more so i take issue with the fact that it only becomes an issue when a black man is involved. This Mike Vick thing is not about animal cruelty. It’s about racism.

Finally if you are set on your theory about this having to do with pets, then you should look into puppy mills. http://stoppuppymills.org/ another sick form of widespread animal abuse by white businessmen, widely ignored by the public.

Torture is torture….forcing them to fight is just one type.

But TBL, you suffer from the classic case of confirmation bias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
You have absolutely no reason to believe Vick was walking in an arrogant, defiant manner, so you claim it’s your “opinion.” But your opinion is based on nothing more than your preconceived notion that Vick is a disgusting person. Per that fact, you will interpret everything he does from this point forward as disgusting. If he walks up to the court in his normal gait, he’s an arrogant asshole. If he crawls up crying his eyes out, it’s an admission of guilt to a disgusting crime. If he doesn’t speak to the media proclaiming his innocence, its an admission of guilt. If he speaks to the media proclaiming his innocence (like he did before), he’s a liar an dis thumbing his nose at the law. It’s the same thing with any athlete you don’t like, and hte opposite for any athlete you don’t like. I’ll take a perfect example from the wider sports media. WHen Cal Ripken plays hurt and forces himself into the lineup, holding his team hostage for years for his own selfish record, its portrayed as noble, since the media likes him. When Miguel Tejada pinch-hits a day after gettign hurt to keep his streak up, doing the same thing, he is killed as a selfish athlete, since the media doesn’t like him. Isn’t it the media’s JOB not to have biases. Remember the one they had in 2002, the one that bought everything President Bush said about WMD’s in Iraq? Now you see where that leads to. I know this is a blog, and you have no responsibility to NOT suffer from confirmation bias like the wider media does, but its the same disingenuous behavior people critice ESPN for, and you seem to be the same.

Are any of the animals that produce hamburgers, veal, etc pets? If you tell a cow to sit or fetch, does it listen?

The point is if you want to prosecute a person who tortures animals and you live in America, unless you are a vegetarian or on a staple of organic free-range meats, you have no further to look than the mirror!

http://www.noveal.org/

http://www.hsus.org/farm/camp/totc/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veal

Here is an excerpt from the Humane Society of the United States the same group that everyone is rallying behind to prosecute Vick.

Due to animal welfare concerns, the entire European Union has already banned both veal crates and gestation crates, effective 2007 and 2013, respectively. Yet, in the United States, the use of these abusive crates remains customary practice.

For both calves and pigs, intensive confinement in crates causes painful and severe welfare problems. The HSUS is working to end the cruelty inherent in veal and gestation crate confinement..

1. Interesting that you need to see facts to pass judgement on Veal, but on Vick it’s no problem to speculate about his evil.

2. The question is not so hard, given the choice of being seperated from your mother at birth and living your whole life in crate 2ft by 2ft wide or being raised as a pet, potentially being given steroids or drugs, being trained to fight, spending hours on treadmills, etc… which would you rather do? Of course the latter!!! What do they with people in prison who act up? They do the isolation thing!

3. Pitbulls are born to fight, anybody who says they are not is lying. You can take the nicest pitbull in the world, put them in a dogpark with 5 other dogs, throw a toy in there and see which dogs get aggressive in a hurry. 9 times out of 10 the Pitbull will show the dog aggression over another breed. Anybody who says otherwise is feeding you some b.s. propoganda. Sure a lot of it is the owners, but these dogs are just naturally dog aggressive.

4. There are two different issues here one is the legal issue, the other is the moral issue. What I keep hearing from people is that Vick’s crime was so heinous, so disturbing, that it offends their morality. Then my question is how come Veal doesn’t offend their reality much more! If this is about a legal matter than quit bringing up the so heinous, dog victims, etc… Wait for the trial and let the man go to jail if convicted, but quit faking the outrage.

Why are John Kerry, Robert Byrd and so many outraged by this, but sit quietly back and watch millions of animals get abused legally. Where is our Veal ban like the EU’s?